Margo van den Brink

Climate-proof planning for flood-prone areas: assessing the adaptive capacity of planning institutions in the Netherlands

It is generally acknowledged that adapting low-lying, flood-prone deltas to the projected impacts of climate change is of great importance. Deltas are densely populated and often subject to high risk. Climate-proof planning is, however, not only a new but also a highly complex task that poses problems for existing institutional and administrative structures, which are the product of times in which climate issues were of little importance. This paper assesses the capacity of the historically grown Dutch planning institutions to promote climate-proof planning for flood-prone areas. The Adaptive Capacity Wheel provides the methodological framework. The analysis focuses on two planning projects in the west of the Netherlands: the Zuidplas Polder project at the regional level and the Westergouwe project at the local level. It is shown that the planning institutions involved in these projects enable climate-proof planning, but to a limited extent. They face five institutional weaknesses that may cause risks on the long term. To climate-proof urban developments in flood-prone areas, it is necessary to break through the strong path–dependent development of planning institutions and to build in more flexibility in existing rules and procedures.

Organizational Conditions for Dealing with The Unknown Unknown: Illustrated by how a Dutch water management authority is preparing for climate change

Abstract The central question of this article is the extent to which organizations, governmental authorities in particular, are able to deal with the unknown unknown. Drawing on Weicks work on sensemaking, we introduce seven organizational conditions that can facilitate organizations to be reliable under trying and surprising situations. We analyse the utility of this framework by analysing how a Dutch water management authority is preparing for the unknowns of climate change, which are nearly impossible to predict and thus hard to prepare for. Our assessment reveals several strengths and weaknesses and helps to develop devices to make governmental authorities more resilient.

Between tradition and innovation: developing Flood Risk Management Plans in the Netherlands

Traditionally, governmental authorities in the Netherlands have a strong focus on the construction and maintenance of flood defences, such as dikes and dams. The last decades, however, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of spatial planning for flood risk management. With the arrival of the Floods Directive (2007), it is likely that even more attention will be paid to sustainable spatial planning to reduce flood risks. From an institutional perspective, this paper explores the way in which the Netherlands is now attempting to further integrate water management and spatial planning in the preparation of its first Flood Risk Management Plans. The current internal policy debate centres around five important issues concerning the required measures, instruments, rules, governance styles and time perspectives. Maintaining its strong, engineering-based water management tradition, and at the same time institutionalising a framework for a more holistic flood risk management that comprises not only rules and regulations for probability reduction but also for impact reduction through sustainable spatial planning turns out to be a challenging task. The recently established national Delta Commissioner (2012) could be an important stimulus for the further integration and innovation of water management and spatial planning.

Between adaptability and the urge to control: making long-term water policies in the Netherlands

Triggered by recent flood catastrophes and increasing concerns about climate change, scientists as well as policy-makers increasingly call for making long-term water policies to enable a transformation towards flood resilience. A key question is how to make these long-term policies adaptive so that they are able to deal with uncertainties and changing circumstances. The paper proposes three conditions for making long-term water policies adaptive, which are then used to evaluate a new Dutch water policy approach called ‘Adaptive Delta Management’. Analysing this national policy approach and its translation to the Rotterdam region reveals that Dutch policy-makers are torn between adaptability and the urge to control. Reflecting on this dilemma, the paper suggests a stronger focus on monitoring and learning to strengthen the adaptability of long-term water policies. Moreover, increasing the adaptive capacity of society also requires a stronger engagement with local stakeholders including citizens and businesses.

Resilience unpacked – framing of ‘uncertainty’ and ‘adaptability’ in long-term flood risk management strategies for London and Rotterdam

ABSTRACT Resilience is held as a promising concept to produce a paradigm shift from traditional flood control to an integration of flood risk management and spatial planning. Central ideas to the resilience narrative are that ‘nothing is certain except uncertainty itself’ and ‘adaptability’ is key to ‘governing the unknown’. However, this terminology is far from clear, yet increasingly used, which raises the question how it is made sense of in practice. To answer this question, we examine two long-term flood risk management strategies in the London and Rotterdam region with a policy framing perspective (i.e. the English Thames Estuary 2100 Plan and the Dutch Delta Programme). In both strategies, uncertainties are a key concern, leading to adaptive strategic plans. Reconstructing the framing processes shows that the English adopted a ‘scientific pragmatism’ frame and the Dutch a ‘joint fact-finding’ frame. While this led to different governance approaches, there are also striking parallels. Both cases use established methods such as scenario planning and monitoring to ‘manage’ uncertainties. Similarly to previous turns in flood risk management, the resilience narrative seems to be accommodated in a technical-rational way, resulting in policy strategies that are maintaining the status quo rather than bringing about a paradigm shift.